London Whitechapel And The East End

GEFFRYE MUSEUM. The Geffyre Museum is the place to unleash your inner Martha Stewart. This elaborately restored 17th-century almshouse holds a set of connecting rooms that have been painstakingly reconstructed to showcase specific periods in interior design. Move through Elizabethan parlors, Victorian studies, and stark post-WWI sitting rooms. If not informative, the obsessive attention to detail is certainly amusing: the radio in the “1990-2000” loft plays 1990s pop, and the table is strewn with glossy women’s magazines. Downstairs you’ll find temporary exhibits and a design center for local artists’ displays. The manicured backyard garden is lovely and can be admired from the popular glassed-in lunch cafe. (Kingsland Rd. Old St., then Bus #243 or 10min. walk along Old St. and left on Kingsland Rd., just past its intersection with Cremer Rd. or Liverpool St. and Bus #149 or 242. ☎020 7739 9893; www.geffrye-museum.org.uk. Open Tu-Sa 10am-5pm, Su noon-5pm. Cafe open 10am-4:45pm. Food £3-6. Admission free.)

MUSEUM OF CHILDHOOD. Come here to visit the toys from your past, the toys you wish you had in your past, and some you didn’t know existed. Housed in the original Victoria and Albert building, the museum holds puzzles, toys, dolls, and doll houses from the past few centuries. Play areas allow children to play dress up, perform puppet shows, build sandcastles, and generally exhaust themselves. Those over the age of five will appreciate fun facts about childhood favorites such as Barbie and GI Joe. (Cambridge Heath Rd. Bethnal Green. ☎020 8983 5200; www.museumofchildhood.org.uk. Open daily 10am-5:45pm. Free.)

Galleries

WHITECHAPEL ART GALLERY. Reopened in Spring 2009 after doubling its size, this century-old gallery remains at the forefront of a buzzing East End art scene. Founded in 1901, Whitechapel was one of the ...more